The Loyal Refugees

Robert Livesey

Description

The American Revolution frequently turned neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, and father against son. By the end of the conflict, more than seventy thousand former residents of the Thirteen Colonies left or lost their homes. Most headed north to the Canadian wilderness. Although they too wanted independent and democratic rights, they believed in law, order, and loyalty to Britain.
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Sujets

• History
• Revolutionary
• Histoire
• guide
• Discovering Canada Series

Informations

• Publié par: Loyal Refugees
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781989282670
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

DISCOVERING CANADA

ROBERT LIVESEY & A. G. SMITH
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Text copyright © 1999 by Robert Livesey
Illustrations copyright © 1999 by A.G. Smith
 
First published by Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited in 1999
Published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd. in 2002
Published in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8
Published in the United States by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 311 Washington Street, Brighton, Massachusetts 02135
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.
 
www.fitzhenry.ca      [e-mail]
 
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
 
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
 
Livesey, Robert, 1940-
The loyal refugees
 
(Discovering Canada)
Includes index.
ISBN: 0-7737-6043-1
 
1. United Empire loyalists – Juvenile literature. 2. American loyalists – Canada – Juvenile literature. 3. United States – History – Revolution, 1775-1783 – Juvenile literature 4. Canada – History – 1763-1791 – Juvenile literature. I. Smith, A.G. (Albert Gray), 1945-. II. Title. III. Series: Livesey, Robert, 1940-. FC426.L58    1999    j971.02’4    C98-932944-5 E277.L58    1999
 
Fitzhenry & Whiteside acknowledges with thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

 
Text and cover illustrations by A.G. Smith
Cover design by Tannice Goddard
 
Printed in Canada
 
 
Dedicated with love to Cousins Luke and Christine
 
 
A special thanks to David Moore, U.E.; Fred Hayward, U.E.; Josie Hazen; the librarians at the Oakville Public Library; the Sheridan College Library; the University of Windsor Library; Horst Dresler; Sheila Dalton; and Kelly Jones.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Discovering Canada Series
The Vikings
The Fur Traders
New France
Native Peoples
The Defenders
The Railways
The Loyal Refugees
The Rebels
Contents
 
Introduction
 
CHAPTERS
 
1.  Attack on Canada:
Guy Carleton, John Burgoyne and Others
2.  Rebels and Loyalists:
William Howe, Henry Clinton and Others
3.  Natives and Rangers
Joseph Brant, John Johnson, John Butler and Others
4.  Refugees in Exile:
Frederick Haldimand, John Parr and Others
5.  Black Loyalists:
Thomas Peters, Henry Washington and Others
 
Index

Introduction
 
 

The American Revolution of 1775-83 created a new country, the United States of America, from the former Thirteen British Colonies. It also created a second country, Canada.
At the time of the revolution, one third of the people in the American colonies were loyal to the King of Britain, an equal number were in favour of armed revolution, and the last third were neutral.
The American Revolution was really the first American civil war. It was more like a family feud. It frequently turned neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, and father against son. By the end of the conflict, more than 70,000 former residents of the Thirteen Colonies had left or lost their homes. Most travelled north to Canada, creating new cities and communities in what would become the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Lower Canada (Quebec), and Upper Canada (Ontario).
The displaced refugees felt the new, un-elected, rebel Continental Congress was a threat to their freedom. The Rebels had broken away violently from Britain with bloodshed and revolution; the Loyalists were disgusted with the open conflict, mob violence, and illegal actions. Although they remained loyal to Britain, they also demanded democratic and independent rights, but through peaceful evolution. Loyalists changed the nature of the Canadian wilderness and shaped the future personality of the Canadian people. They believed in law, order, and loyalty.
Events leading to the American Revolution
Ironically, when the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies revolted and declared independence in 1776 they already had more rights, liberty, and democracy than any other people in the world, including citizens in Britain.
The arrangement was that Britain protected her colonies from pirates and hostile enemies with her powerful army and navy, while the colonies supplied raw materials in return for manufactured goods from Britain.
Britain had let the colonies develop without too much interference or controls. There were British-appointed governors, often prominent colonists, who worked in cooperation with elected local assemblies of the people. However, with an ocean separating the two groups and a spirit of independence created by the frontier life on a new continent, a hostility grew between the mother country and her colonies.
Much like teenagers and parents today, the colonies objected to any British attempts to control them; while Britain felt it should curb the growing lack of respect for its rules and regulations. A series of events led to open conflict.
The Seven Years War (1756–1763)
During the Seven Years War between Great Britain and France, the American colonies fought loyally and bravely with Britain against the French. Every colony was loyal to the king. After the Battle on the Plains of Abraham * , where the British General Wolfe climbed the cliffs and captured Quebec City from General Montcalm in 1759, the British gained complete control of North America. In addition to the Thirteen ‘American’ Colonies and the British colonies in the north such as Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Island of St. John (today Prince Edward Island), Britain now ruled Canada — where the people, at that time, spoke French and were mainly Roman Catholic.

Royal Proclamation (1763)
When King George III guaranteed native land rights in 1763, many colonists were angry. They felt that they were now prevented from expanding west across the continent. The Proclamation declared that the border between American settlers and native tribes would be the Appalachian Mountains. West of the mountains would be solely native territory.
The Stamp Act (1765)
This was one of many unpopular trade taxes imposed by the British government on its colonial citizens.
The Stamp Act declared that all business contracts had to be made on stamped paper purchased from British government officials. The British claimed they required the money to support a standing army, needed to defend the colonies and pay the debt from the war against France.
Most colonists agreed that the army was necessary but some insisted that they should vote to raise the tax, not have it imposed on them by Britain. Shouting “No taxation without representation!,” violent mobs broke into the homes of the officials who were selling the stamps, destroying their property, and physically attacking them. Radical, illegal organizations were formed, calling themselves “Sons of Liberty” The act was withdrawn due to the protests. Some of the loyal colonists, although disapproving of the tax, became alarmed at the violence.
The Boston Massacre (1770)
More taxes on tea, glass, and other trade goods resulted in more resentment and mob violence. When a hostile crowd of Bostonians stoned a detachment of British soldiers, the troops fired on the crowd, killing some of their attackers. Rebel propaganda called it the Boston Massacre.
British ship Gaspee (1772)
A gang of Rhode Island smugglers, upset because the British naval schooner Gaspee was interrupting their illegal trade, captured and burned the vessel. Law and order was breaking down.
The Boston Tea Party (1773)
In December of 1773, an organized mob of protesters, angry about the tea tax, disguised themselves as Mohawk natives and attacked British ships in the Boston harbour. They threw 40,000 kg of tea into the water.


March on Boston (1774)
There were no police forces in 1774. In an effort to restore law and order, Britain appointed General Thomas Gage, the military commander in America, as governor of Massachusetts. He sailed to the lawless city of Boston with a large army of soldiers. The Massachusetts assembly’s right to choose its executive council was removed, town meetings were outlawed, and the port of Boston was closed, causing economic hardship.
Provincial Congresses (1774)
The political power struggle increased. Early in 1774, “committees of correspondence” were formed in every colony. They published propaganda and defied the elected colonial assemblies under the authority of the royal governors. Radicals created un-elected provincial congresses, to the dismay of the loyal citizens.
The Quebec Act (1774)
In 1774, the British passed the Quebec Act. It extended the borders of the colonies in Canada from the Labrador coast in the east, along the Ohio River in the south, to the Mississippi River in the west. To the north was Rupert’s Land, the fur-trading territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Canada, in 1774, included the present-day states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana.
The Quebec Act angered many of the citizens in the Thirteen Colonies to the south because it prevented them from expanding north and west. It also created a very unusual neighbour that spoke French and was officially Roman Catholic (unlike Britain or her other colonies in North America). In Canada, the priests kept their established legal rights to collect dues or taxes such as the dîme or tithe from the habitants (tenant farmers). The act decreed that Canada use the English Civil Law, but it kept the old French Civil Law.
Unlike the citizens of Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, the habitants of Canada had no elected a